Nifonging the Catholic Church

me ^ | April 18, 2010 | vanity

[Judith Anne]

I seriously wonder about some FReepers, sometimes. Any other person accused of a crime would be defended by every FReeper as being innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. I've seen whole threads written by men who have been accused of child abuse by ex-wives out to deny them their visitation rights or to wrest more money out of them. These men are rightly indignant, and furious about the unjust accusations that cannot be proven but are never withdrawn.

Yet where are those FReepers when a PRIEST is accused? Where is the presumption of innocence? Suddenly, every accusation becomes a verdict, and not only the accused but his entire organization and all its adherents are held responsible.

I can only wonder what some of these so-called conservatives (who so faithfully defend the Constitution) would do, if THEY were the ones accused! It is a nightmare for any man -- all of you know how even the accusation stains the man forever, even if it is proven false!

Not only that, many here assert that the problems of 30, 40 and even 50 years ago must be tried in the media TODAY!

Remember the Duke rape case? There are more similarities than differences here. The priests are accused, nifonged, and instead of being defended, they are vilified!

What other man of you could stand under the weight of such an accusation trumpeted by the press, and come out whole? None! And such accusations made, LONG after the statute of limitations has passed, sometimes even after the accused is dead and buried for YEARS -- are YOU one of those who automatically, reflexively, spitefully, and gleefully act as judge, jury, and executioner?

Women! What if it were YOUR HUSBAND, YOUR BROTHER, YOUR FATHER, YOUR UNCLE, YOUR SON who was accused? Wouldn't you want the best defense possible? Wouldn't YOU believe in their innocence? Wouldn't YOU help protect your loved ones as much as possible? And yet, YOU JUDGE THE CHURCH FOR DOING WHAT YOU WOULD DO?

Shame! Vast shame! On all who have sinned against the innocent!

[Mad Dawg]

LOL! Oh my DOODness Dwacious!

[Mad Dawg]

When I was in seminary and preaching one Sunday, they wheeled this gazillion year old guy to the front of the church where he promptly fell asleep. And SNORED. LOUDLY!

Hard to preach when you want to bust out laughing.

[Mad Dawg]

This is actually pretty interesting. One reason for the Papal States was to assert the independence of the Church. The whole Guelph Ghibbeline strife was NOMINALLY about Church v. State (Empire) but of course other matters intervened.

Thomas a Becket was martyred over the issue of Church independence.

In Spain during the earlier parts of the infamous Inquisition there were also civil courts. A history professor at UVA (who says his studies of the period played into his becoming a Catholic) says that if you were busted for, say burglary, you might say, “Oh, and the Pope’s a jerk,” or something in order to end up before the Inquisition because they were gentler and had more rigorous due process with opportunities to recant.

By and large, I think we do not appreciate — I am just coming to appreciate — the chaotic state of things and their undefined condition throughout Europe in the period from say 800 to 1500.

[Mad Dawg]

Nope. I haven’t. Now it’s on the list. I should get to it in like 2020 ... ;-)

[RegulatorCountry]

There was actually a bull written to stop the Inquisition that was withdrawn when the Spanish authorities refused to adhere to it.

Can't have the Spanish monarchy appear to disobey the pope, now can we? Stop that Inquisition right now! Oh, uh, never mind, jolly good. As you were, continue expelling Jews.

You're putting forth a half truth. Pope Sixtus IV and Ferdinand sound just as cozy as Phillip of France and Pope Clement. Monarchs pulled the strings of the church and not vice versa with some frequency at times, it appears.

To flesh out the half-truth and provide the rest of the story: The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition, was a tribunal established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the medieval inquisition which was under papal control. The Inquisition worked in large part to ensure the orthodoxy of recent converts, especially Jews, Muslims and others. Various motives have been proposed for the monarchs' decision to found the Inquisition, such as increasing political authority, weakening opposition, suppressing conversos, and profiting from confiscation of the property of convicted heretics. The new body was under the direct control of the Spanish monarchy. It was not definitively abolished until 1834, during the reign of Isabella II.

The monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to Castile to discover and punish crypto-Jews, and requested the Pope's assent. Ferdinand II of Aragon pressured Pope Sixtus IV to agree to an Inquisition controlled by the monarchy by threatening to withdraw military support at a time when the Turks were a threat to Rome. The Pope issued a bull to stop the Inquisition but was pressured into withdrawing it. On November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV published the Papal bull, Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus, through which the Inquisition was established in the Kingdom of Castile. The bull also gave the monarchs exclusive authority to name the inquisitors. The first two inquisitors, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín were not named, however, until two years later, on September 27, 1481 in Medina del Campo.

The first Auto de Fe was held in Seville on February 6, 1481: six people were burned alive. From there, the Inquisition grew rapidly in the Kingdom of Castile. By 1492, tribunals existed in eight Castilian cities: Ávila, Córdoba, Jaén, Medina del Campo, Segovia, Sigüenza, Toledo, and Valladolid.

Sixtus IV promulgated a new bull categorically prohibiting the Inquisition's extension to Aragon, affirming that,

many true and faithful Christians, because of the testimony of enemies, rivals, slaves and other low people—and still less appropriate—without tests of any kind, have been locked up in secular prisons, tortured and condemned like relapsed heretics, deprived of their goods and properties, and given over to the secular arm to be executed, at great danger to their souls, giving a pernicious example and causing scandal to many.

In 1483, Jews were expelled from all of Andalusia. Ferdinand pressured the Pope to promulgate a new bull. He did so on October 17, 1483, naming Tomás de Torquemada Inquisidor General of Aragón, Valencia and Catalonia. Torquemada quickly established procedures for the Inquisition. A new court would be announced with a thirty day grace period for confessions and the gathering of accusations by neighbors. Evidence that was used to identify a crypto-Jew included the absence of chimney smoke on Saturdays (a sign the family might secretly be honoring the Sabbath) or the buying of many vegetables before Passover or the purchase of meat from a converted butcher. The court employed physical torture to extract confessions. Crypto-Jews were allowed to confess and do penance, although those who relapsed were burned at the stake.

In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII attempted to allow appeals to Rome against the Inquisition, but Ferdinand in December 1484 and again in 1509 decreed death and confiscation for anyone trying to make use of such procedures without royal permission. With this, the Inquisition became the only institution that held authority across all the realms of the Spanish monarchy, and, in all of them, a useful mechanism at the service of the crown. However, the cities of Aragón continued resisting, and even saw revolt, as in Teruel from 1484 to 1485. However, the murder of Inquisidor Pedro Arbués in Zaragoza on September 15, 1485, caused public opinion to turn against the conversos and in favor of the Inquisition. In Aragón, the Inquisitorial courts were focused specifically on members of the powerful converso minority, ending their influence in the Aragonese administration.

The Inquisition was extremely active between 1480 and 1530. Different sources give different estimates of the number of trials and executions in this period; Henry Kamen estimates about 2,000 executed, based on the documentation of the Autos de Fé, the great majority being conversos of Jewish origin. He offers striking statistics: 91.6% of those judged in Valencia between 1484 and 1530 and 99.3% of those judged in Barcelona between 1484 and 1505 were of Jewish origin. "In 1498 the pope was still trying to...gain acceptance for his own attitude towards the New Christians, which was generally more moderate than that of the Inquisition and the local rulers."

These were local Catholic rulers. This is the environment that was present to an extent across all of Europe, and was the environment into which Martin Luther was born.

As I said before, anti-Semitism didn't just fall out of the sky the day that Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

Source: http://wapedia.mobi/en/Spanish_Inquisition

[Mad Dawg]

Well, I wish you could see our Church at Easter. After the longish (not really maybe 45 minutes) vigil of scripture and prayer in great darkness, suddenly you are aware that the Church is shaking. -- because the organist is playing a note too deep to hear. Then he builds on that note and increasingly triumphant fanfare grows and evolves and sounds for maybe 50 seconds.

Then all the lights come on and, seemingly from every corner, come women with pots of flowers. As they construct a sea of blooms around altar a banner unfurls in the back of the Church with huge letters: Worthy is the LAMB!

Bells jangle and we all burst into the Gloria in Excelsis.

Tears generally flow copiously.

I think this about the crucifix. It's dynamic. That is it points ahead to the empty tomb. But it also points at us in 2 ways. (1)This is how much He loves you. (2)If you are suffering, He is with you.

You know as a counsellor, that while it's good sometimes to place things in context, to say, "You will be healed, you will get better, this will resolve," Often the first thing to say (and we say it mostly by listening) is, "Yes, you are suffering greatly. I am here with you. I will hear all the details of your suffering. I won't tell you to shape up or that there are others who suffer more. I won't try to 'fix' you. I will be with you where you are."

So that is part of what the crucifix says to me.

The trail has been blazed, and Jesus Himself walks with us as we stagger up Golgotha, and He will continue to walk with us THROUGH (apparent) defeat to obvious victory.

[Mad Dawg]

Well, I wish you could see our Church at Easter. After the longish (not really maybe 45 minutes) vigil of scripture and prayer in great darkness, suddenly you are aware that the Church is shaking. -- because the organist is playing a note too deep to hear. Then he builds on that note and increasingly triumphant fanfare grows and evolves and sounds for maybe 50 seconds.

Then all the lights come on and, seemingly from every corner, come women with pots of flowers. As they construct a sea of blooms around altar a banner unfurls in the back of the Church with huge letters: Worthy is the LAMB!

Bells jangle and we all burst into the Gloria in Excelsis.

Tears generally flow copiously.

I think this about the crucifix. It's dynamic. That is it points ahead to the empty tomb. But it also points at us in 2 ways. (1)This is how much He loves you. (2)If you are suffering, He is with you.

You know as a counsellor, that while it's good sometimes to place things in context, to say, "You will be healed, you will get better, this will resolve," Often the first thing to say (and we say it mostly by listening) is, "Yes, you are suffering greatly. I am here with you. I will hear all the details of your suffering. I won't tell you to shape up or that there are others who suffer more. I won't try to 'fix' you. I will be with you where you are."

So that is part of what the crucifix says to me.

The trail has been blazed, and Jesus Himself walks with us as we stagger up Golgotha, and He will continue to walk with us THROUGH (apparent) defeat to obvious victory.

[Mad Dawg]

However, Christ did not shrink back from being offensive—lots of times.

Well, I'm not He.

Also, I wonder how well it works usually. Does it enhance or inhibit communication?

I'll be travelling home today. So no more posts until much much later.

[RegulatorCountry]

In Spain during the earlier parts of the infamous Inquisition there were also civil courts. A history professor at UVA (who says his studies of the period played into his becoming a Catholic) says that if you were busted for, say burglary, you might say, “Oh, and the Pope’s a jerk,” or something in order to end up before the Inquisition because they were gentler and had more rigorous due process with opportunities to recant. By and large, I think we do not appreciate — I am just coming to appreciate — the chaotic state of things and their undefined condition throughout Europe in the period from say 800 to 1500.

I know the history better than some due to genealogical interest. My surname's first definitive appearance in public record was via the Templar Inquisition of 1185.

It's fair to say that there were rare eras of peace and tolerance, widely interspersed with persecution. The charge of "heretic" was often used by corrupt Catholic church officials and corrupt Catholic government officials, oftentimes one and the same, to seize assets and property. This was done most notably with the Knights Templar, but it occurred on a less notorious scale across Europe with some frequency.

I don't hate the Catholic Church. It's done more good than bad over the centuries. I just detest the weird, one-sided account of history. My own people were quite often on the other side of that history, and so I endeavor to tell it.

[Quix]

OH?

THANKFULLY,
God,
has often
demonstrated
a
DIFFERENT
perspective.
LOL!

My assertion stands.

I, personally, have observed abundant evidence of slavish, too often, seemingly mindless compliance with dry husk empty RELIGION under the Vatican umbrella . . . and far too often rather little evidence of significant numbers or percentages of spiritual intimacy with Father and a Spirit-filled life. And, very often, rather very spiritually deadly substitutes for New Testament Christianity.

However, you are quite welcome to avoid taking me seriously. That would be a very affirming thing.

[Quix]

No loved ones nor ushers roused him?

Goodness!

I’ve known ushers who’d have wheeled him at least to the back, if not out in the hallway or foyer.

[Quix]

Those surviving the next 1-20 years will likely have a MUCH GREATER appreciation for such chaos.

[Quix]

I well understand.

I have 5 or 6 books going at present, IIRC.

[Quix]

Sounds gloriously impressive.

I think you know I respect your spirituality a lot.

[Quix]

Certainly important issues.

Safe travels to you.

May all the jihadi’s be far elsewhere!

[wmfights]

I’m with you Brother!

[Quix]

THX THX for your kind reply.

Have a blessed weekend.

[xzins]

we promise not to out you.

I've never worried about what others think about my take on doctrine and practice. In that regard, I am, and apparently until heaven, always will be unfettered.

[xzins]

toe-may-toe

toe-mah-toe

:>)

[wmfights]

Hard to preach when you want to bust out laughing.

LOL, that's pretty good.

I imagine it's pretty tough to work on a sermon all week and then when delivering it see a bunch of distracted people in the congregation. We have Christians come up in front of the congregation on occasion and give their testimony. Sometimes they are so caught up in every nuance that the congregation gets distracted. The best advice a Pastor gave me was if you're going to witness to someone, or give testimony, you need to make your point within 2 minutes or you will lose that persons attention.

A great example is a couple weeks ago we had a baptism of new believers during the service. Among those being baptized were 3 former muslims. Prior to being immeresed in the water one of the former muslims gave the best testimony of the day.

He was asked why he had become a Christian. His response was, "because of the love of Jesus". Probably a third of the congregation spontaneously shouted AMEN!